2. 1950’s mutant creatures and
alien invaders
Audiences were first introduced to mutant creatures and aliens in
movies in the 1950’s. The first 50’s movie to feature outer space
and aliens was a low-budget movie called ‘Rocketship X-M’. This
then started a trend of sci-fi films. Some of the most popular and
films of the genre were ‘The Thing’, ‘The Day The Earth Stood
Still’, ‘Invasion Of The Body Snatcher’, ‘It Came From Outer Space’
and ‘War Of The Worlds’.
4. Mutant Madness
Existing life forms made monsters as they could be photographed using
blue screen techniques. Early special effects worked well in the King
Kong movie, 1933. On screen monsters represented the cutting edge of
movie technology and was seen as a good way to draw audiences away
from tv.
This era’s obsession with the monster movie stems from the fears
generated by co-existence with the atom bomb.
Monster movies offered a vision of destruction created by non-humans;
instead of generating chaos and disaster, humans represent a force of
good.
These monster movies of 1950’s were the first blockbusters.
6. The Blob was released 1958 and there
has been 2 re-makes of the film since
then. The message of this film was to
warn people of the potential dangers of
space travel.
The Blob is an unidentifiable creature that
feeds and expands on individuals fears.
One could say the same thing about the
targets of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s
“Red Scare” accusations.
7. In the 1950’s, people were worried that we were ahead of time in terms of
technology and were scared that it would take over their lives. People lived in fear
that the effects of technology was going to mutant and deform people.
Films after the war in the cinemas didn’t concentrate on the war and fighting but
the pace of technology we were using. For example the atom bomb, guns and
machinery.
The race to space was also a major thing in the 1950’s. Because of the new
obsession of aliens and mutant creatures in movies, Countries wanted to got to
space and explore and see if there is other life form. The competition was mainly
between the USA and Russia.
8. Even now, there’s still and
obsession with space and what’s
out there. People are always
coming up with new ideas of
what creatures out in space look
like. And we see this in the new
alien and mutant creature
movies. In todays generation
there’s some stereotypes and
less fear and more mocking of
the creatures. Movies such as
Monsters Inc and Alien VS
Monsters.